The Legal Research Of Standard Clauses In Telecommunication Service Contract

Standard clauses are highly applied to telecommunication service contract, which are stipulated by telecom operators. Since 2003, the standard clauses in telecommunication service contracts have been accessed to be among the list of"Top Ten Unfair Standard Clauses"annually by the China Consumers'Association.Telecommunication service is one of the mainstay industries nowadays in our country. It is a high demanding and fast developing natural monopoly industry which is regulated by the government. The natural monopoly compels consumers to adopt standard contract clauses when they contract with telecom operators, no matter"subpayments"or"prepayments". For example, telecom users'purchasing prepaid phone cards is actually a standard contract clause of telecom operators without consulting with users. Although standard contract clauses are concise, convenient and low-cost to some extent, its disadvantage is obvious. The clauses in the contract are preconcerted by the operators and the industry monopoly of the clauses users, as well as the monopoly priority in constituting standard clauses exclude the possibility of consumers'choices and the consultation of telecom operators. They make the unfair format clauses possible to exist in telecommunication contracts. This article focuses on analyzing the unfair clauses in telecommunication service contract, and accentuates effectiveness of the existence of those standard clauses and methods on the solution and my opinions on those standard clauses by the relevant principles of civil and contract law. The first chapter mainly analyzes the fundamental theories of telecom service contract. In the second chapters, I elucidate several unfair standard clauses according to recent research result. In the third chapter, I propose juristic suggestions to meliorate the regulation of the unfair clauses of telecommunication service contract.